VP Design - Bata

Bata Group; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Bata is seeking a visionary Design Leader to craft a distinctive Bata look across Men, Women and Kids. You will read global trends and turn insights into elegant, contemporary collections that are affordable and built to last.

You will build and coach a high-performing global design team, while collaborating with Product Development, Sourcing, Commercial and Marketing to ensure consistency from concept to store shelf across markets. Extensive international travel is expected.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in footwear, fashion or lifestyle design with a portfolio showing distinctive language and commercial success.
• Proven experience shaping or transforming a brand’s design identity.
• Passion for stylish, accessible footwear with quality at affordable price points.
• Strong sense of global trends and youth culture across markets.
• Track record building, inspiring and growing design teams.
• Hands-on experience with factories and development teams, with willingness to travel widely.

Responsibilities

• Define the Bata look and establish design codes and language for a distinctive signature.
• Design style for the masses that balances price with style, comfort and quality.
• Translate global trends into actionable design direction and briefs for teams.
• Lead, coach and develop the global design team and build a studio culture.
• Travel regularly to India and China to collaborate with factories and PD teams.
• Create Bata lasts, soles and components to ensure recognizable design across collections.
• Partner with Product Management, Merchandising and Regional teams to maintain a coherent global design with local relevance.
• Collaborate with PD, Sourcing, Commercial and Marketing across regions to align on goals and timing.
• Own the design process and calendar with clear milestones from brief to store.

Skills

Footwear design

Brand building

Team leadership

Global trends

Factory collaboration

Cost awareness

Job description

Bata has put the world on its feet for more than 130 years. Now we are building Bataworks, our new global design studio, and we are looking for the person to lead it.

This is not a role for someone chasing fast fashion or cheap product. It is for a designer who believes great style belongs to everyone: modern, elegant footwear that is affordable, made to last and designed for the many. Your mission is to give Bata what it has never fully had, a distinctive design signature and a clear brand point of view, expressed in every shoe we make.

Reporting to the President Bata, you will lead our global design team across Men’s, Women’s and Kids’. You will read global trends and consumers with a sharp eye and turn those insights into elegant, contemporary collections that are unmistakably Bata.

You will make Bataworks the design direction of youth: the place where young people find their style, and the place young designers want to be. Building, coaching and growing your team is not one part of this role. It is the heart of it.

You will not lead from a distance. You will spend real time in India and China, working side by side with our factories and Product Development teams, because great design at accessible prices is won on the factory floor as much as in the studio.

Above all, this is a team role, not an individual one. Bataworks is one piece of a much bigger puzzle, and great design only reaches the consumer when everyone around it succeeds together. You will team up every day with Product Development, Sourcing, the Commercial organization and Marketing, both globally and in our countries, to make sure every concept is desirable, commercially sharp and technically feasible, from first sketch to store shelf.

We are looking for a true team player: someone who builds strong partnerships when things go well, and who stays constructive, open and committed when things are tough or a team is not yet performing as it should.

What You Will Do

• Define the Bata look. Take Bata from a brand without a clear design voice to one with a distinctive, recognizable signature. Set the design codes, principles and language that make a Bata shoe instantly identifiable across categories, seasons and markets.
• Design style for the masses. Create modern, elegant footwear that is affordable and for everyone: never fast fashion, never cheap. Balance style, comfort, fit and quality at price points the world can reach.
• Turn global trends into Bata product. Read global trends, youth culture and consumer behavior across markets and translate them into clear, actionable design direction and briefs for your teams.
• Build Bataworks into a destination for young talent. Lead, coach and develop the global design team, set a high bar, grow designers into leaders and build a studio culture and reputation that attracts the best emerging design talent in the industry.
• Lead from the factory floor. Travel regularly to India and China to co-develop with our factories and PD teams, solving design, material and cost challenges together and protecting the design intent all the way to the finished shoe.
• Build Bata’s proprietary design foundations. Create an arsenal of Bata lasts, soles and key components that make Bata design, comfort and fit recognizable, while increasing speed, consistency and efficiency across collections.
• Balance one global vision with local relevance. Partner with Product Management, Merchandising and Regional teams to build coherent collections that carry one global design signature while responding to local needs in priority markets such as India, from climate and occasions to culture and price architecture.
• Be a true partner across the organization. Work hand in hand with Product Development, Sourcing, the Commercial teams and Marketing, at global level and in our countries. Share ownership of results, align early, solve problems together and put the success of the whole above the success of design alone.
• Run a disciplined design engine. Own the design process and calendar, with clear milestones, reviews and decision points from brief to commercialization, and shared ways of working across the studio and external design partners.

Who You Are

• A designer with a point of view. 12+ years in footwear, fashion or lifestyle design, with a portfolio that proves you can create a distinctive design language and make it commercially successful.
• A brand builder. Proven experience shaping or transforming a brand’s design identity, taking it from generic to distinctive and executing that vision consistently through product.
• A believer in design for everyone. A genuine passion for stylish, accessible footwear and a deep understanding of how to deliver desirability at affordable price points without compromising on quality.
• Globally fluent. A sharp instinct for global trends and young consumers, and the ability to understand different cultures, markets and price points and translate them into the right product.
• A people leader first. A track record of building, inspiring and developing high-performing design teams, with real examples of designers you have helped grow into stronger designers and leaders.
• A footwear expert. Deep knowledge of construction, materials, lasts, soles, fit and comfort, with the credibility to lead across categories and to engage factories and PD teams at a technical level.
• At home in manufacturing. Hands‑on experience working directly with factories and development teams, ideally in Asia, and a real appetite to travel extensively to India and China.
• Commercially sharp. A clear understanding of how design decisions affect price, cost, margin, manufacturability and sell-through.
• A team player, without exception. You know that design is one piece of a big puzzle and you thrive in close partnership with PD, Sourcing, Commercial and Marketing, globally and locally. You bring the same energy and respect to strong teams and struggling ones, in good times and difficult ones, combining a clear creative point of view with openness, pragmatism and shared accountability.

Reporting

Reports to: President Bata

Conditions of Employment

• On-site
• Extensive international travel, particularly to India and China